[crashryan]

What a strange mess this strip is. I can't believe anyone in 1954 would accept that a series of "mini atomic bomb blasts" could happen on US soil without nuclear retaliation and World War III. The explosions are treated like little more than dynamite blasts, without shock waves, heat, or radiation. I don't know how audiences felt in the fifties, but to me making light of an atomic catastrophe in this cavalier way seems grotesque. As are the "comical" Communists, though admittedly comics of the time were full of such types.

This strip reinforces my impression (derived from "funnyman") that Jerry Siegel couldn't write humor. Ogden Whitney's very slick, very realistic (and very good) artwork pushes the strip further in the non-funny direction. The first several days of the second story make it appear that Siegel had decided to turn the strip into a straight adventure.

Link to the book: Ken Winston 1954-11-02 to 1955-01-08